AZUB recumbents blog

New dealers in USA, Germany and Russia

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:53:02 +0000

We are very happy to announce that we have several new dealers in USA, one in Germany and a contact person in Russia. In autumn 2011 just before the Recumbent Cycle Con we drove a car acroos the whole US from New York to Los Angles and have visited many dealers. They all responded very positively and we met many others during the show in LA too. And now, the time comes, and first of them order AZUB trikes and bikes to show in their shops. Let’s go through all of them.

Bent Up Cycles!
11522 Burbank Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91601
T: (818) 358-2740
E: dana@bentupcycles.com
W: www.bentupcycles.com

RBR Recumbent Bike Riders Inc
1306 S Atherton St
State College, PA
T: (814) 234-4636
E: sales@rbr.info
W: rbr.info

ANGLETECH / CYCLEDIFFERENT
1483 Garden of the Gods Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
T: (800) 793-3038
E: info@cycledifferent.com
W: www.angletechcycles.com

Velo Verdé
6791 Sebastopol Ave
Sebastopol, CA 95472
T: 707.823.3227
E: veloverde@gmail.com
W: www.veloverde.net

E-Cycling of Central Florida
2 W Plant Street
Winter Garden, FL 47877
E: ecyclingllc@yahoo.com

And we cannot forget to mention, that our long term partner Bicycle Man is still working with us. Thank you for that!

BICYCLE MAN
6392 State Route 21
Alfred Station, New York 14803
T: 607-587-8835
E: Pete@bicycleman.com
W: www.bicycleman.com

In Germany, Dominik Langer from Radieschen Freiburg has set up a new shop just in Constanz next to Bodensee. A great place for recumbent cycling.

radium-konstanz
Schulthaißstr. 1a
78462 Konstanz
T: 07531/ 3692480
W: info@radium-konstanz.de
E: www.radium-konstanz.de

And finally in Russia we have a contact person Dmitry who will help you to choose the proper recumbent and mainly help you with shipping the bike to Russia which is not always easy.

Dmitry Kumenko
T: +7-917-537-9946
E: dmkum@yandex.ru
W: http://ligerad.ru/
B: http://dmkum.livejournal.com/

2012 price list

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:59:42 +0000

We would like to inform you that from March 10th, 2012 the new price list will be valid for all new orders. There is still enough time to place your orders with the 2011 prices. We do have the delivery times around 3 to 5 weeks now which is far better than last year and we also have some bikes and trikes on stock.

We are also happy to announce some new options and some changes in the 2012 offer:
- We will offer bar end shifters for the Deore and Deore XT components as an option
- We will deliver the Ventisit Comfort instead of the Ventisit Classic
- We will no longer offer the Kevlar version of the seat as the kevlar material went up so much that the price is almost the same as the carbon seat but heavier. So only carbon in offer.
- As the Magura Julie is no longer in offer we will continue with Magura MT 2 hydraulic brakes
- For trikes with drum brakes we offer the possibility of 90mm Sturmey Archer brakes as an option (standard is 70mm)
- We change from cyclocomputer SIGMA BC 1009 to SIGMA BC 1609 wireless
- We offer better quality of the drinking set and will deliver a combination of SKS bottle cage and bottle
- You can find the BionX option in our offer with two levels of batteries. This will be the 2012 new 48V system with amazing power and beautiful design of the motor itself.

We are also working on some more improvements like the open cockpit (U-bars) and some other details. Those will come on SPEZI 2012.

You can download the price list of AZUB recumbents from here.

Two Japan videos of AZUB TWIN

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:37:13 +0000

This AZUB Twin tandem recumbent was the very first one we ever delivered and it riding in Japan now. Its owners made a great videos of it and placed on Youtube.

Enjoy!

Thermos bottle for AZUB riders

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:04:56 +0000

Ronny Svensson is one of our Swedish customers who ride an AZUB ECO trike. He makes custom engraving on thermos bottles and other objects and he made two very nice thermos bottles for us. And we would like to offer such a nice thermos also to our customers. If you like them you can order them with your customized text. But you can order them only from Ronny directly. Not from us or any of our dealers.

Look at our recumbent web page here for more info.

Valdson on Paris-Brest-Paris

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:38:21 +0000

This is an e-mail we received from one of our customers Valdson. He ordered an AZUB MAX with Rohloff, SON hub dynamo, some carbon parts etc. just few weeks before the so known and respectful Paris-Brest-Paris race. The oldest bicycle race on the world which is still organised. But just once per four years.

The MAX is his first recumbent so it would be hard to think he can manage such a race without having problems, but at the end he did around 900 km which is great. And here is a very short summary from him:

“Sorry for the delay on writing to to you to say something about my experience with the Azub Max on PBP…

Well, I think the Rohloff noise is a bit lower now, as you said, and I got used with it, so it is ok!

I think the speeds are ok, in fact it’s common the need of using the lowest speed on some climbs. It’s more useful to have the low speeds than to have higher speeds, so I think it is ok. Maybe I’ll think about adding a Schlumpf gearing system in the future, if I really feel the need for higher speeds. But for now it is ok, I’m happy with the current configuration.

I have twisted my ankle 3 days before the PBP! I was getting out of the train, carrying the bike, and the doors were closing, then I run and I didn’t see the stair steps… My ankle got really swollen and purple, it was hard to walk, but no problem to pedal.

It was a little hard to find bicycle stores to buy the stuff I needed. Then, saturday and sunday, the day of the PBP start, I had yet some things to buy and then I could not sleep during all day, before the starting, as I wanted.
I started the PBP with the seat on lowest inclination angle. Then, after some time I started to feel pain on the buttocks and I started to increase the inclination angle. When I felt pain again, I have increased the angle a little bit more, until I put it on the highest inclination angle. Then I didn’t feel more pain!! It was really nice to pedal the Azub Max recumbent bike in this long distance travel! After I have put the seat inclination angle in the maximum (the most layed down position), I didn’t feel any pain on the buttocks, on the back, on the neck, or on the hands! The only pain I felt was on the legs, on the knees and on feet. Then I tried to find the best distance between the seat and the pedals, and the best height of the seat too. After a long time pedaling I have felt numbness on the feet. But the numbness could be solved only stopping for a couple of minutes and then I could start another long time pedaling before feeling the numbness again, so, it was not a big problem. I have liked to put seat on the higher height to have the pedals relatively lower.

On the last section before getting to the control point of 310 km, I was without battery on my Iphone, I think that because the recharge was not working properly probably due to some problem on my USB cable. Then I had not any information about time and distance. I had no clearance on the time, because I was a little slow on climbs, I think that mainly because I have not the muscles used on recumbent bikes well worked out. And I missed some time too at the seat adjustments. In that section I was very asleep, probably because I had not slept how much I wanted before the starting. And my initial plan was to sleep only on the control point close to 400 km. To complete, it rained a lot on that section, on a moment I stopped for some time because the rain was very strong with a lot of lightning. I think I don’t had good clothes to get protected from the rain on a recumbent. So, when I arrived on the control point of 310 km, I was delayed, asleep, soaked, with hungry. Looking to the time, I would have to continue on the same moment to try to recover the time. But I needed some time to be able to continue, mainly some time to sleep. Then I decided to abandon the proof there, to take a shower, to eat and to sleep, then return the 310 km enjoying the travel! It was really nice. In a moment I have got a better adjustment of the seat and then it was really confortable to pedal!

The bike calls so much attention in the streets! It is like a parade! For now I prefer to use my regular bike in the city and let the Azub for long distance travels.

Again, thank you very much for the effort you and everyone from Azub have made to prepare the bike as I wanted on time! It is a really nice bike!”

Twelve brave – a TV show with Aleš Zemánek, owner of AZUB BIKE

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:35:31 +0000

This TV program was in the TV in 2007 as a part of the prestigous Twelve brave series produced by Vodafone. Every year 12 business owners are presented only. They speak about their dreams which turned out to be sucessful business. In 2007 also Ales Zemanek – owner of AZUB BIKE – company producing recumbents and recumbent trikes, was one of those twelve businessmen.

Quite some things has changed since 2007. The company produce 12 models at the moment (end of 2011), has 8 employees, all the building is rebuild now and offer enough of office space and just enough of assembling and stock place for producing recumbents. Also the number of produced recumbents per year has grown a lot.

But the ground of the company, passion of its emploees and passion of Ales Zemanek can be nicely seen in this document.

Pink lady

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:36:05 +0000

The weather outside is not really nice nowadays everything is gray or brown and people do not smile at each other as in Summer. So let´s come with some sweet pictures with shiny bike and smiling lady.

Rebecca saw her bike on the SPEZI show 2011 in Germersheim and she was dressed exactly as you see her on the picture. The color of her t-shirt matched absolutely with the color of the bike. It was amazing and it was a love at first sight. She bought the bike directly on the show and sent us these pictures few weeks after.

The bike you can see is an AZUB Max with 24″ wheels and color scheme from our color shop. The color itself is RAL 4010.

We have been waiting with publishing them until now, when they will make your grey day a bit more colorful.

AZUB Team wish you more colorful days in your lifes.

How to transport recumbents in public transport mostly airplanes

admin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:24:38 +0000

There is a lot of disscusion about protecting your bike especialy recumbent in an airplane. Mostly because none is 100% safe. People who are responsible for loading and unloading the luggages to/from an airplane and all others around do not really care what is inside and they are in fact not responsible for any demages at all. So two extreme opinions are:

1/ Let your bike as it is, unpacked. Only remove pedals, bars and the seat and maybe protect some important part. People on an airport will see it is a bike and will care more. BUT, some airlines do not allow such transport and the bike is at the end not protected at all against any scratches.

2/ Pack your bike as much as you can for example into paper box, tape it, protect it inside etc. BUT, nobody know what is inside, there can be other suitcases thrown on the box, it can lay down etc. And the box is also much heavier than „nothing“

I have traveled quite a lot with our recumbents not only in airplanes, but also in buses and trains. I can give you some recommandations, tell you some experiences, but please, note, that I do not care much about little scratches here and there. My bikes are used for hard travelling and they are scratched quite a lot anyway. I even like bikes which look used. They have kind of challenging look.

So, here are some points, suggestions, experiences. In a big mix and maybe a little bit messy, but I hope it helps you.

- You can use different size of the paper box and pack the bike inside. Very safe way which also airlines like.

- Or you can pack your bike or trike into a fabric bag. We have one like that in AZUB and plan to have it in the offer soon. It is recommended to use some protecting material inside too. You can fold an AZUB TRIcon inside or I can pack inside my prototype of folding AZUB Mini recumbent.

- Or you can use kind of simple thin fabric bag and just wrap the bike inside and than tape it around. You have to disassemble your seat, bars and pedals from your bike.
- If you can, let stands your bike/trike on wheels.

- Always remove rear derailleur and let it hang on the chain. Or in fact tape it than to the frame securely or using the zip ties. Also disassemble derailleur hanger as this is very fragile part and can be easily demaged. To be sure, you should have one spare too.

- Airlines usualy allow to pack only a bike inside the box or bag, but you can use your clothes as a protecting material. Should not be a problem with that and you save weight of your second checked in luggage. Or you can even go only with hand luggage. I like to put my matrasse inside and time to time also sleeping bag or part of the tent.

- Security officers usualy want to see what is inside the box. Think about it. They should have a chance to somehow look inside, but the bike should stay packed also after that. They can look inside even after check in. Especialy when you travel with a need to change from plane to plane.

- Check with the arlines what are the conditions of transporting a bike. Some offer it for free. For example KLM offers for intercontinental flights one hand luggage, one checked-in luggage and one sport equipment. EL-AL (israeli national airlines) offers that too up to the weight of 20 kg of the bike. But for example Delta charges like 80 EUR per one flight! Most of the low cost airlines will also charge for a bike. So check all that before ordering the ticket. The cheapest one can be quite expensive at the end…

- Check also for the size and weight of the box/bag allowed. If they do not mention it and talk only about sporting equipment or bike, you win. BUT, note that the maximum weight of one luggage is 32 kg world wide. Even if there is allowance of combined weight for two or three travellers. Those people who lift your luggage to the plane are heros, but not robots!

- Bikes are usualy checked in on different place as they are oversized. So you should go to the check-in counter with all your luggages include the bike and they will tell you what to do later and where to go.

- Same when you pick up the bike after your flight. There is always a special counter for oversized luggages. It happened to me just once my bike appeared on the same conveyor belt as other luggages.

- With buses it is far more different. They do not like such a big boxes as the trunks of buses are much smaller. But we traveled with a non-foldable recumbent tandem from Czech to Greece by a bulgarian bus. Or in fact from Brno to Sofia and than in another bus to Athens. The company confirmed to me they will be able to bring the bike from Brno to Sofia for 10 EUR. But than, nobody knows. We risked it knowing you can always give some „additional“ fee to the driver. And we suceed

- We also travelled by train from ukrainean Crimea peninsula via Kiev to Uzhorod on slovakian border. We had a portable tandem with trailer. Huuuge. I disassembled it completely and it took me 8 and half hours to assemble it back

- Once in China they did not know what to do with my bike as they did not have a special counter for oversized luggages. So they told me to stand on the conveyor belt with the bike and sent me through the rubber flaps and wall inside the airport. You can imagine faces of people on the other side looking at the bloody european foreigner standing there with a bike!

I will probably add some more experiences and picture soon when something pop up in my mind. The thing is travelling is great and a little bit of hassle when transporting a bike is just part of the big adventure called travelling.

With my wife Eliška we travelled to Athens, Greece once with a prototype of AZUB TWin recumbent tandem. In that time, the proto was not foldable so I had to disassembled it completely and packed it. We used buses to get there from Czech Republic which took us about 36 hours. On the picture we are waiting in Sofia, Bulgaria, for next bus.

Here we are in Greece preparing the bike for ride. It took me about 4 or 5 hours to do it under little shelter. It was raining all the time and temperature was around plus 5 degrees of Celsium.

When we travelled to Montenegro and Albania, we went by trains via Budapest, Hungary and Belegrade, Serbia. We had two AZUB MAX recumbents and Bob Yak trailer with us. Also not really a little luggages but at the end not a big problem at all.

Two AZUB Maxes packed in sleeping pads in the train to Montenegro. Looked a bit like dead wild pig.

Two years after our Albanian trip we went to Croatia in winter to test prototypes of AZUB ECO bikes. The ECO frame is perfect as it is straight and easy to pack. When attached to Burley Nomad trailer we could easily walk in train stations between trains.

Two ECO bikes in the train.

When we flew to Himalayas I was able to pack one AZUB TRIcon trike and a prototype of folding AZUB MINI recumbent to one bag. Unfornatenuly it was over 32 kg so we had to split it on the airport.

Waiting for the check-in with all the equipment for trip to Himalayas include one bike and one trike. Not so big, isn´t it?

One trike and one bike under the x-rays.

When I flew to Israel in 2011 I had not only my own bike, but also a trike which I personaly delivered to one of our customers there. To be able to walk and carry everything by myself, I packed on the trike at home and let the bike be my trolley. Like that I could travel by train, use publick transport in Prague, walk around airport etc. Just before check-in I packed my Mini into thin bag.

Here you can see how our friend Brona has packed his ECO trike for the fly to Copenhagen, Denmark and then for the around-the-Iceland tour. He was really surprised when he found a working area on Copenhagen airport prepared with compressor to inflate the tyres…

And that is all at the moment. If you have your own experiences, please, send me an e-mail to honza@azub.cz and I will share it with other AZUB riders.

All the best during your travels!

Honza Galla – www.galla.cz

Links to articles about AZUB Team´s visit in USA

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:35:15 +0000

We visited USA in October to see the recumbent world and recumbent market there, to visit the Recumbent Cycle Con show in LA and to introduce our bikes and trikes. Especialy the AZUB TRIcon impressed many dealers and recumbent riders and all the journey was very sucessful for us. I think I will post bigger gallery sooner or later, but here you can see at least links to all different medias which published articles and galleries about our visit.

http://www.bentrideronline.com/?p=5952

http://www.bentrideronline.com/?p=5933

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150329481904843.369931.77961169842&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150326392329843.369390.77961169842&type=3

http://www.urbanmobilityproject.com/2011/10/no-need-to-go-dutch-urban-mobility-project/

http://www.recumbentjournal.com/blog/item/465-gallery-azub-tricon.html

AZUB Cartoon from Velodreamer.com

admin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:03:53 +0000

We just received a beautiful cartoon of our recumbent from Velodreamer´s Karina. Seems to be an AZUB MAX We like all the projects you can find on their web page www.velodreamer.com and Karina´s set of cartoons is really nice. I recommend to visit their page and enjoy all the photos and videos you can see there. Even they are all in ukrainean.